The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Black salon owners spoke and Lamont listened
I got a voice message over the weekend from an old friend, hopping mad, talking fast.
She was upset, to say it mildly, about a state reopening rule that said salons would not be allowed to use blow dryers when they reopen May 20.
“Black women are pissed, and Latino women. Do you realize, no black woman leaves a salon with wet hair? Our hair is different. Nobody does that. We’ve got natural hair, nappy hair, straight hair, curly hair, dreds, braids, locks, weaves, extensions — and you’re telling us to leave the hair salon with our hair wet?”
By Sunday night, another woman, Metashar Dillon, who has owned salons in Norwalk, New Haven, Hamden and Farmington, had organized a Zoom call with many black salon owners. Dillon also called the NAACP, the governor’s office and the Attorney General’s office.
An entire community felt singled out. For white hair clients, blow drying is optional. For African Americans, not so.
“This is crippling people,” said Dillon, the third of four generations of women in her family who have owned hair salons. “To me this is a modern-day economic lynching. When you don’t have people that can fight for me at the table, then you’re not meeting our needs.”
Gov. Ned Lamont defended the rule in his daily briefing Monday afternoon and I filed a column about the issue.
Then, Monday evening, the administration reversed course on the rule. David Lehman, commissioner of the state Department of Economic and Community Development, said the ban will be updated to guidance saying blow drying is to be done “as needed.”
It’s a matter of balance, Lehman explained. Science suggests hair dryers may blow viruses around in a dangerous way and the dryers have been banned in some places, such as Germany, with success. On the other hand, said Lehman, Lamont’s point person on business reopening rules, “if you’re too cautious then you’re not going to have anything happen.”
He added: “We’re mindful of the situation where blow dryers are critical to getting your hair done in some of these communities.”
There’s no clean way to shut down an economy and then restart it. Never will be. In this case, a group of people spoke loudly — African American business owners — and Lamont’s administration listened.
This was bigger than one rule for one group of business owners.
Across the United States, the black community has been hit hard by the coronavirus. A black person is about twice as likely to die with COVID-19 in Connecticut. And many of the lowpaid, front-line workers risking their lives are women of color.
Black-owned businesses such as many of these salons were so badly shut out of the federal bailout that the state created a minority business fund to help make up for it — totaling $2 million, compared with $4.1 billion in the first round of the federal small-business bailout.
And hair salons in the African American community have special meaning, special pride, because of the history of racial discrimination based on hair.
They wanted justice. And this time, they got it.
Lehman also said the guidance limiting conversation in salons to necessary communication has also been dropped. That was another close call, in which it’s possible less talking would impede the spread of the virus.
Lamont’s reopening committee, which, for the record, is fairly diverse, with Indra Nooyi, a female immigrant from India, as co-chair, had sided with the health and science people on this tough call, according to another woman of color on the commitee, Roberta Hoskie. Hoskie, like Dillon and a few others, had worked behind the scenes.
The women salon owners I spoke with just wanted to see some fairness and respect.
“If they really feel that it’s unsafe to do blow drying, then I feel that it’s unsafe to do hair, period,” said Tasheba Taylor, owner of Indigo Hair Innovations in West Hartford and Newington, before the rule changed.
Some, including Dillon, said if they’re allowed to run air conditioning, then they should be able to have limited blow drying. Some said if the rule targeted people of color — even inadvertently — then no one should be allowed to open.
For Taylor, the rule change could make a big difference. She has seven direct employees and another group of stylists who rent chairs from her. She’s seen no unemployment money, no bailout money, no stimulus check and she’s just now waiting to hear about a state minority business grant or loan that would barely pay the rent.
Taylor explained the various services to me, including woven hair extensions, various types of braids, hot oil treatments and on and on. All in, the business would be 75 percent lost without blow drying, she said. Not worth opening the doors.
The no-talking rule was another cultural headscratcher. My Italian immigrant hair guy, Joe Pugliese, co-owner of a unisex salon called Taglio, chuckled. Of course, with masks and face shields, talking will be tough anyway.
At black salons and barbershops, Taylor said, “People come for the therapy more than the hair...It’s very therapeutic to be pampered.”
Taylor just opened her second location in late January, so she’s worried, and she’s worried about her employees and about many people in the business.
“Whoever did these policies, they don’t do hair,” Taylor said.
No, but they do listen, and they deserve credit for that.
Dillon, rattling off the names of several women in her family in the salon business in New Haven, said she just wanted to find a way to solve the problem. Minority women business owners are not a group that’s had every advantage to begin with.
Decisions like this are daily dilemmas across the nation these days and there’s no way to be fair to everyone. Outdoor dining only? What about restaurants that don’t have that? A return to non-emergency dentistry? Tell that to the hygienists, mostly women, less compensated and more exposed than their dentist bosses.
It’s up to everyone to work in the spirit of compromise and shared sacrifice. In salons starting May 20, we’ll hear the welcome hum of blow dryers — but, as the guidance says, it really should be only as needed.